Evil lurked everywhere in 1965 and our 7th Grade Catholic school teacher, Sister Mary Josef, warned her male students in a special assembly that not only masturbation would condemn boys to hell, but repeated self-abuse led to hair sprouting from our palms and worst case scenario, blindness.

“Idle hands are the tools of the devil. Even the slightest touch can damn your soul. You can never let down your guard.”

“What about when we’re asleep?” a voice asked behind me. Mark Tully was a poor student. He had a problem concentrating on numbers and letters. He was good at getting into trouble.

“Say your prayers before bed and the guardian angels will protect you.” Sister Mary Josef was playing the straight man for Mark’s joker.

“Then why do I get nocturnal emissions?” Mark’s tone of innocence earned a few snickers.

“Nocturnal emissions?” Sister Mary Josef’s blank expression betrayed his ignorance of this male phenomena.

“Wet dreams.” Mark feared no nun. The monsignor was his uncle. He had stolen a station wagon to enter into a demolition derby at Norwood Arena. The family car lasted 30 seconds. His uncle’s intercession prevented his serving 6 months at Billerica Reform School. He could do no wrong and said to our teacher, “It’s not like we can stop them, can we, sister?”

“You will go blind and then to hell.” Sister Mary Josef ended our impromptu sex education and Mark was ordered to write “Pray at night. Pray in your dreams Pray during the day.” 1000 times.

Sex was a mystery. We thought girls couldn’t masturbate. They had no penis. The nuns forbade the girls to polish their shoes. The reflection up their skirts was a siren’s lure to our pubescent lust.

Satan was everywhere and nowhere.

None of us mentioned sex in the confessional. The priests swore Christ had come from a virgin birth and our parents completed the wall of silence about sex with a sketchy lesson about the mysteries of the birds and bees. There was a secret cult at work and only now has the Holy Order of Pedophiles come to light.

The Mullahs of Iran have earned a reputation for puritanism, however Ramadan 2010 is a little more than a month away and the grand leader Khameini has once more scolded the faithful that they should not masturbate during Ramadan, otherwise the fast would be considered invalid. Iran’s most influential religious personage was asked on his website, “If somebody masturbates during the month of Ramadan but without any discharge, is his fasting invalidated?”

“If he do not intend masturbation and discharging semen and nothing is discharged, his fasting is correct even though he has done a h’ar’m (forbidden) act. But, if he intends masturbation or he knows that he usually discharges semen by this process and semen really comes out, it is a h’aram intentional breaking fasting.” This was the posted reply.

This basically means that masturbation other than during Ramadan, which is certainly more advanced thought than the Catholic Church who consider any sex outside of marriage to be the gateway to Hell.

I checked the Mullah’s English website and discovered the holy men spend a lot of time discerning that which is okay and not okay. Very interesting. Check it out for any Sharia dilemmas.

http://www.leader.ir/langs/EN/index.php

The soul you save might be your own.

Ramadan 2010

Enjoy